


The Weight of the World

by thescarletphoenixx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Depression, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Self-Destruction, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29621946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescarletphoenixx/pseuds/thescarletphoenixx
Summary: He didn’t just fail his team when he didn’t kill Thanos, he failed the entire universe, and he failed her too, and now he has to try and live with that.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Marvelously Magical Bingo 2021, Out of the Ashes, Tropes and Fandoms 2021





	The Weight of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for MMF Bingo 2021 - square I4: Post-Infinity War and for Melting Pot’s Tropes & Fandoms 2021 - 2 Regular - Scars (which I chose to interpret as the emotional kind). 
> 
> *I didn’t tag this as major character death because snap deaths were technically temporary. 
> 
> This fic was inspired by the song “Gone” by Blake Rose. It’s deeply sad, just like this story. 
> 
> Huge thank you to JenniseiBlack & GaeilgeRua for reading this over! Any further mistakes you find are my own. 
> 
> All non-original characters, plot points, and information belongs to Warner Brothers, J.K. Rowling, and/or Marvel Studios. The story plot and dialogue belongs to me. I do not write for profit.  
> *My works and ideas are not to be copied or otherwise used without my explicit permission.*

At first it was easy for Thor to just be angry, letting his rage simmer beneath a stoic facade. He had failed, something he wasn’t exactly used to. To also find that he had failed on such a massive scale was something that at first he couldn’t accept. When he did come to accept it, the sheer weight of it pressing down upon him was almost too much to bear. There was a heaviness in his chest that made it feel hard to breathe. This was his fault, and his fault alone, no matter what Steve or Rocket said. They could keep on saying that all of them had failed, but he knew that the blame could be placed squarely upon his own shoulders. He’d had his chance, and he had blown it. 

His grief had been so fresh and raw, a deep, agonizing wound that had cut him to the core. He was so determined to avenge the deaths of his people and his brother. So, rather than swiftly taking off his enemy’s head, he drove Stormbreaker into his chest in order to have the pleasure of the final word as he watched the life leave the great titan’s eyes. Only it hadn’t worked out that way, not at all. No, instead, the psychopath had taunted him for his grave error in judgement before doing exactly what Thor had meant to prevent. Thanos snapped his fingers inside the gauntlet, and then he disappeared. 

Thor watched in horror as people turned to ash before his eyes. He didn’t even know yet that the snap had cost him even more than what he’d already lost. He wouldn’t find out until he summoned the Bifrost and went to the place where he’d left her when he’d last gone off-world. He had to know that she was alright. Surely, after all that had been taken from him, fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to take her too. Oh, how wrong he was. 

He heard the cries of confused and distressed people before he’d even reached the ground. He was all but invisible to them as they desperately searched for their vanished loved ones in vain. His hands shook as he knocked on the door of number 12 Grimmauld Place. What was left of his already broken heart shattered when he was met with the distraught face of her best friend, his sad green eyes telling Thor what he feared most… Hermione was gone. 

* * *

Thor felt numb. He listened to Steve and Carol as they discussed their plan to find Thanos, get the stones, and bring everyone back. He dared to hope just a little, that they could accomplish this, but regardless, he knew what would have to be done, and he knew they wouldn’t like it, so he kept it to himself. 

Thanos had taken nearly everything and everyone that Thor had left. He clenched his teeth as he remembered the Black Order boarding their ship and slaughtering half his people, forcing him to watch all of it, even as Thanos himself murdered Heimdall and then his brother Loki right in front of him. And then he snapped half the universe out of existence, taking the lives of even more Asgardians and taking his witch as well. Yes, Thanos would pay... He would pay dearly for his crimes. 

* * *

Well, he had done it. He’d killed his enemy at last. Sliced off his head with Stormbreaker once the titan told them that he’d destroyed the stones, their hopes of salvation destroyed along with them. So why didn’t he feel any better? Thanos was dead, but that wouldn’t bring Hermione, Loki, Heimdall, or anyone else back from the dead. In fact, he felt worse now. Where before there had been a small glimmer of hope, now there was no hope at all. 

Thor sat down on a neatly made bed, in an unfamiliar room that was apparently his at the compound. He put his head in his hands, and for the first time in many years, he wept. He mourned for everything that he had lost, and cursed himself for his failures. Killing Thanos had brought him no peace; it changed nothing. His massive shoulders shook as he finally let himself feel every bit of the pain he’d been carrying. 

* * *

Not long after they’d all returned, Carol, Nebula, and Rocket left to help keep order across the galaxy. Earth might have been ground zero, but it was far from the only planet left in shambles after the snap. Pepper and Rhodes took Stark elsewhere to continue his recovery. Banner retreated into his lab, working obsessively, not coming out for days at a time. Natasha had assumed leadership in the wake of their failed mission, and spent much of her time wearing a brave face, doing her best to hold back tears, something he himself now understood all too well. Steve began staying in the city more and more, running a support group that he constantly tried to get them to attend, but none of them ever did. 

As was the case every night, Thor had difficulty sleeping, so he wandered the compound. Eventually, he took a seat at the bar that Stark always kept well-stocked. Midgardian alcohol didn’t do much for him though. He had to drink it in ridiculous quantities in order to feel its effects. What he craved was Asgardian mead, but there was none to be had here, and no way to make it either, now that Asgard no longer existed. The reminder made his throat constrict.

An hour later, he’d finished off a few bottles of varying types, and he still wasn’t feeling as much of it as he wanted, so he kept on going. He reached around behind the bar to find that there was nothing else within his grasp. He got up to peruse the shelves. What else was there to do but drink? A twinge of fresh pain washed over him. An unremitting ache resided in his chest. It was ever-present, and it never let him have any peace. Try as he might, he didn’t think there was anything left in the universe that could ease his pain, not anymore. 

The losses he’d experienced were nothing short of soul-crushing, and he wasn’t sure how to come back from that. He would never be the same again; he was sure of it. And now here he sat, using alcohol in a vain attempt to stitch the broken pieces of himself back together. He now understood why Brunnhilde had done the same for so long after the loss of her sisters. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so lost in all his life. Despair consumed every waking moment, and nightmares inhabited his dreams. He wondered, was it possible to drink himself to death with human-made alcohol? Perhaps he would find out… he didn’t much care anymore if he lived or died.

He had grabbed a bottle of whiskey when the bottle behind it caught his eye, with an ominous-looking skull on the label. He pulled that one forth from the shadows and put the whiskey back. A curious shade of light green, this liquor was called absinthe, one he’d not heard of before. The label declared it to be “the essence of darkness,” and “not for the faint of heart.” He shrugged and brought it around the bar. He did not have high hopes for it, after all, it was still made by humans.

He found that absinthe wasn’t like most Midgardian drinks; it was something else entirely. While it still took more than a normal amount to make Thor feel its effects, it did a far better job than anything else he had tasted that hadn’t been crafted by Asgardian hands. Indeed it was not for the faint of heart, just as its maker had promised. He had almost finished the entire bottle when it happened. 

A soft, familiar voice spoke to him as if she was right there with him. He froze. It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be, yet when he turned around, there she stood. He didn’t know if this was the result of the absinthe or his deep despair. In reality, it was a dangerous combination of the two. His fragile mind had conjured this remarkable apparition before him, looking just as she had the day he’d left her behind. He nearly dropped the glass from his shaking hand.

“Hermione…”

“Hello Thor,” she said sadly. 

“Are you…. are you real?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”

Disappointed, but trying not to show it, he swallowed the rest of the absinthe in his glass. He set it carefully on the bar. 

“Why are you here?”

She tilted her head and fixed him with a sympathetic expression.

“Because you needed me.”

He hadn’t thought his heart could break any more than it already had, but her words shattered him all over again.

“I miss you…” his voice cracked. “I... I don’t know how to live in a world where you don’t exist.”

Hermione looked at him with pity in her soft brown eyes.

“You feel things so deeply, more than anyone else knows… but I know you, and I know that I cannot be the only reason you are in such a state. Tell me what happened, Thor.”

Tears filled his eyes as he confessed all of it to her, all of his failures, right down to his inability to prevent Thanos’ genocide. To say that it hurt seemed inadequate. It felt as if it had split his very soul, an error of such monumental proportions, failing not just the people that he cared most about but literally the entire universe. 

He was reminded again that this was not real when he tried to reach out and touch her and grasped nothing but the empty air. As his vision started to blur at the edges, her form began to fade, her voice becoming only an echo. The high was over, the ghost of her was gone, and he was alone again.

* * *

After that first night seeing her, speaking to her again as if she’d never gone, Thor sought out more of the absinthe that brought Hermione back to him. The worst part was when the alcohol began to leave his system, and she faded away like she had never even been there at all. But, he’d suffer through the pain with the knowledge that he’d see her again. Deep down, he knew it was wrong; it wasn’t healthy in the least bit, but what if this was the only way he could stay connected to her? Besides, he was doing no one any favors while he was sober. Alcohol took the edge off, and being sober, well, he felt the pain in full force. So he continued the trend, night after night, drinking until it took him to the place where she still existed, then sleeping it off the next day and waking at dusk like some nocturnal creature. 

Perceptive as she was, it didn’t take long for Natasha to notice the change in his habits, his absence during the daylight hours, and his general unwillingness to do anything but drink or sleep. Naturally, she enlisted Steve’s help to intervene. While they both empathized, they also knew that this behavior could not continue. Not only was it unhealthy, but the remaining Asgardians needed their king, and they needed him of sound mind. 

When they’d been spared from Thanos’s slaughter, Brunnhilde had led them to their intended destination: Earth. And along the green coast of Norway, they’d founded New Asgard. They’d been patiently waiting for Thor to join them after he’d finished his mission with the Avengers. Nearly two months had passed since they had returned from deep space, having failed to retrieve the stones and undo the damage. Thor couldn’t face his people. He had brought them nothing but suffering and death, and he couldn’t see how they could want anything to do with him at all. He was no king. He couldn’t save their homeworld, and he couldn’t save them from Thanos either. He was a destroyer, just as Heimdall had once told him in a vision, and indeed it seemed that he had led them straight into Hel. It was something else he couldn’t forgive himself for. 

* * *

Just like any other night, Thor left his room well after sundown to resume his routine. Tonight, Natasha and Steve were waiting to intercept him before he reached the bar. They steered him into the communication center. He was still too caught off guard to put the pieces together of what was happening. When they reached the room, he dropped into a chair at the long table they’d once held meetings at. Natasha slid into a chair across from him, and Steve leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. 

“What is this,” Thor questioned, looking from one face to the other.

Natasha sighed.

“It’s time we addressed your recent habits,” she said carefully. “We are all struggling to stay afloat, but this,” she gestured to him. “This is more. You are drowning.” 

He hung his head. She was right, of course. And it did feel rather like drowning.

“Thor, you can’t keep blaming yourself. We all failed to do what needed to be done,” said Natasha.

“All of us,” Steve emphasized.

“I’m supposed to be the strongest Avenger… but after all that’s happened, I don’t feel worthy of that title anymore.” 

He told them everything; all of the events that had transpired in such a short amount of time. From the death of his father up to his failure to prevent the snap, and finally, the loss of Hermione. The last in a staggering number of losses, the final straw that ultimately broke what little spirit he had left. Fresh tears burned behind his eyes as he struggled to hold himself together in front of his friends. The ache in his chest felt more like a vice grip around his heart.

“You know that drinking yourself to death is not the way to deal with your problems, right?”

“Maybe not, but it’s the only way that I can see her again… Hermione.”

“What do you mean?” Natasha blinked in confusion.

“Your green drink… when I drink enough of it, she appears, and… and she speaks to me. It’s as if she’s still here.” 

Natasha and Steve both were at a loss for words, exchanging shocked expressions. They’d assumed the obvious about their friend’s sudden downward spiral into alcoholism, but they were floored to find that he was drinking himself into oblivion every night to entertain a hallucination.

“Absinthe,” said Natasha, “that’s the stuff that you’ve been drinking like it’s water.”

She leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms.

“I’ve removed the rest of it from the bar, and there won’t be anymore stocked to replace it. This is for the best, Thor.” 

“Just… just let me see her one last time, let me say goodbye to her. Please...”

His voice broke as he begged for her compassion.

Natasha’s features softened. She recognized the desperation and pain in his voice; she understood it all too well. She got up and crossed the room to the large desk she’d taken to working from. She unlocked the bottom drawer and produced the last bottle of the absinthe. She’d hidden it there after instructing FRIDAY to ban it from the compound’s inventory. She set it down and pushed it across the table towards him.

“That’s the last of it… so make it count. Tomorrow you’re going to sober up, and then you’re going home.”

“Home?”

“To New Asgard. Your people need you.”

She turned to leave, shooting Steve a threatening look in response to his incredulous expression. This hadn’t gone as either of them had expected, but then again, they hadn’t anticipated that the reason he was drowning himself in hard liquor was in order to speak to a ghost.

**Author's Note:**

> In reality, absinthe doesn’t produce the hallucinations that are attributed to it. But this is fanfiction, and for the purposes of this story, absinthe is a hallucinogenic substance.
> 
> According to How Stuff Works, for many years, it was believed that when large quantities of absinthe were consumed, it could produce powerful hallucinations. The chemical that's taken all the blame for absinthe's hallucinogenic reputation is called thujone, which is a component of wormwood. In very high doses, thujone can be toxic. It is a GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid) inhibitor, meaning it blocks GABA receptors in the brain, which can cause convulsions if you ingest enough of it. But there's not enough thujone in absinthe to hurt you. By the end of the distillation process, there is very little thujone left in the product. In the U.S., thujone levels in absinthe are capped at 10 milligrams per liter, while absinthe in Europe may have 35 milligrams per liter. Modern science has estimated that a person drinking absinthe would die from alcohol poisoning long before they were affected by the thujone. In view of modern analysis, any absinthe-related incidents can most likely be attributed to chronic alcoholism, alcohol poisoning, or drinking the cheap stuff, which, like moonshine, can have poisonous additives in it.


End file.
